I (used to think I) love(d) someone.

Daaaaamn, check her out!
Yo, that ***** is VERY PRETTY!

I (know better than to) believe that nothing is impossible.

Maaaan, I would  HOLD THE DOOR OPEN FOR  that chick all night long, if y'know what I mean.

I (pretend to) listen to what other people have to say.

I hear ya, but me personly, what I'd like to do is  MEET HER PARENTS  while wearin' A NICE SUIT  and have a  PLEASANT EVENING WITH STIMULATING CONVERSATION.

I've (given up on all my) dreams and ambitions.

Maybe even bring  A BOTTLE OF VINTAGE WINE  so that I could really  MAKE A GOOD IMPRESSION, if you know what I'm sayin'.

I want to (believe there's no point in trying to) make the world a better place.

**** bro, you are one  RESPECTABLE AND STAND-UP  ********, you know that?

Canted at a crazy angle
with arms going wild like an air dancer at a car dealership.
I threw up in the bathroom of one like three weekends ago.
It was awful.

Okay, I'm for it, but before we get to it I'm gonna need another one.
After it goes on for long enough, it all starts to meld together,

Blend this moment with the next one.
Pour this night into tomorrow.
like mush.

It all tastes the same.

A fleeting feeling followed by a slow rush.
A stride that shakes off dust while growing mold.
A flavor between bland and bold,

How far can you stretch?

Barely handle staying this way for just today.
Suicide pacts in place in case we happen to grow old,
with a color between tan and gray.

Let's do it again either way,
Spending too much time looking at it can result in loss of appetite.
just once more,
for ol' time's sake;
let's have one last night.

Everything else is alright, it's just our lives that're mistakes.

I don't feel so good anymore.
You really shouldn't play with your food.

Point me in the direction of somewhere that isn't just more of this.

I want to go home.
*The trick is to eat it before it gets cold.

Remember that one time when I asked you if you remembered what happened way back when?
I forget what your answer was then,
but I remember how much it meant to me to be reminiscing with the Queen of Forgetting.

Remember when you used to care about memories?

And we went careening down streets while screaming in a mix of anxiety and exhilaration.
Each day blending with the next; driving past every chance we had to turn back,
living as if we were on a never-ending vacation.

Remember when you used to have fun? When fun was number one and everything else was boring?

How to Keep Running After Falling Flat on Your Face

And when the Duchess of puking tried to kiss the Archduke of Douches.
Our toes a familiar sight while seeing double.
How we used to recite unrecyclable verses while climbing into the back seats of hearses.

Remember when we used to actually talk about things? No, not like this. I mean, passionately. Remember when we used to get so heated about a topic that we'd practically be screaming at each other?

How To Keep a Straight Face After Scraping What's Left of It off the Pavement

And swinging through trees that we'd climbed against better judgement;
passing under streetlights that painted haloes around our dark heads.

Remember when you used to laugh in a way that didn't sound frantic? When your grin didn't look so much like a grimace?

And going to public places in broad daylight just to read the faces of those who couldn't see beyond their own noses?

How to Focus on Obtaining Goals That You Don't Believe To Be Worth It

And looking at our toes and hitting pavement but then bouncing up again to get caught in the hurricane of everyones' perceptions of what was happening

How to Board Up Your Windows After They're Already Broken

Remember when you used to make genuine human connections with other people?

just to find ourselves in the Eye of the Storm, staring at each other, grinning in a way that isn't frightened or frightening;
Laughing in the way that isn't desperate or forced, but hearing it get warped by the howl of wind surrounding us.

Remember

How to

Wind that's closing in.

Misplaced feelings of lust and aggression.
A fresh new take on an old depression.
Watch as we make mistakes on purpose.
Hear us proclaim our own lives as worthless.

Misjudged values and dusty pedestals stacked chest-high with the best nonfacts - cracked down the middle.

None of this was ever about you;
just a made-up answer to an unknown riddle.

Embracing the end when we're still in the beginning.
Come on now friends;
This isn't living.

It's okay to go to the movies by yourself. (I mean, I've only ever done it once, but it was totally fine. The guy who sold me the ticket wasn't like, "Don't you have any friends?" and the people in the theater weren't constantly looking at me from over their shoulders and saying things like, "Is that guy really here all alone? What a loser!"
At least I don't think they were . . . )

Ditto for restaurants.

If you have a history of boyfriends/girlfriends who don't treat you very well, then you probably have a thing for negative attention.

If you don't trust/can't accept love, it's probably because you don't love yourself.

If he/she isn't interested, move on.
No really, move on.
I'm serious, cut the crap.
(Okay look; even if by some miracle it ever actually did happen (and I don't even like to use that phrase because it might give you false hope that it could,) it'd never feel right. It'd feel like you worked way too hard for it and that they only relented because they just got bored or curious and said, "Oh, what the hell," and then but only you'll be constantly waiting for them to get tired of you (who they never even really liked in the first place, so like, how can you possibly expect them to keep liking you until, you know, deathdoyoupart/forever/happilyeverafter and whatnot,) which will make life a living hell and far more stressful than it ever would have been if you'd just moved on the moment after she/he initially rejected you way back in the beginning.)

If someone doesn't share the same views as you, don't waste your time and effort trying to convince them to. (If anything, it's more likely to repel them.)

If you think someone has a false impression of you, don't waste your time and effort trying to correct that impression (you'll likely just solidify their false impression of you by doing so.)

If you know the right way to live, then you're probably doing it wrong.

The only thing worse than a poet who thinks they don't deserve love from anyone is a megalomaniac who thinks that everyone should love them more. (Sometimes I can't tell the difference.)

If you've been waiting for something to happen before you go and do that thing that you've been waiting to do for a long time, but only haven't allowed yourself to do it yet because you've been waiting for that something to happen first so that you'll then be ready to do it because that thing that you were waiting for has happened now and so it's time to finally go out there and do the thing that you were waiting to do because of the other thing that you were waiting on is over now so there's nothing left to use as an excuse to wait on doing it any longer for, only but now there's this whole other new thing that it seems you have to wait for to happen that came up as a result of that other thing that you were originally waiting for that you weren't expecting to happen as a result of the thing happening, and so now you're waiting for this other thing to happen before you go and do that thing that you've been waiting to do . . .

If you think you're being witty or clever, don't let on.

If you still can't figure out who you are and what you're about or what you truly believe in, even though you've been trying to so hard and for so long and doing all of this soul-searching in order to do so, then just give up.
(You'll finally figure it out shortly after.)

No one laughed at the funniest joke ever told.
In fact, many of them cried,
while others went batshit and lost their minds,
but most just sat and stared;
Catatonic.
Unaware.

Everything broke;
nobody cared.

I don't like that I like it.
I'm uncomfortable with it's familiarity.
I hate that I love it.

I despise the obsession.
I loathe the acceptance.
I confess that I'm upset with the extent of its influence.
I'm not okay with how okay I am with getting lost in this confluence of forces.

Please don't coerce me into this kind of metamorphosis.
I don't want these wings.
This isn't the sky that I'd care to travel.
These aren't the clouds I'd choose to drown in.

The next thing I swallow won't be a mouthful of lies.
Certain circumstances notwithstanding;
I'll burn these feathers before I use them to fly.

I'd been holding out on living until I found out she'd died.

Don't ever fall in love with your own tragedy.

If you draw a minus sign through the first angle of the first N in the word None, then you'll end up all Alone.

The faces don't match the voices.
The voices don't sound right,
and a sunny day such as this one
doesn't just suddenly turn to night.

I think I might be dreaming, I whisper to myself,
who then nods in agreement
and points to the way out.

The scents don't match the scenery.
The scenes aren't adding up,
and politely asking the gasping walls doesn't make them stop.

"I'm trying to find my way out of here," I say to my own face,
who echoes back the question
after a short delay.

I point to the space behind him,
then he points at my head.
I think I might be dreaming,
or else I might be dead.

I see myself as I was before
walking in through the Exit door;
confused and lost and in need of help.
I calmly point him to the way out.

It doesn't make any sense though,
and it's the farthest thing from fair.
*Walls don't even have lungs,
so how can they breathe air?

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He says he misses the days when we used to do nothing.
I said those days are dead.
She says it's like a high-pitched whirring noise way back in her head.

Everyone's so salty now, trapped in a can of mixed nuts.

She says his stasis is driving her insane.
He says she's already wasted the better half of her brain.
I said it seems we're always caught between two extremes,
but I could give a flux.

Y'know that sinking feeling you get when you discover that the author of the strangely fascinating book you've been reading like a mad man for the past few days committed suicide at a young age?

I understand that you're working ******* your karma;
that you're toiling toward keeping that feather weighing more than your heart.
I get that you somehow get off on going above and beyond what other people expect of you after you've agreed to do something for them.
(Though you should know, that because you do it every time, they always expect you to.)
I can clearly see that you've been collecting good deeds in order to redeem them at the end of this thing for a better seat to whatever the hell it is that you think is going to happen;
that you treat each one as an eon shaved off of the wait time you'll have to spend in the line to get into heaven.
No really, I get it.
It's your thing, your MO; your shtick.
But me personally,
I've got better things to do than bend over backwards for opportunists.

Being lame is underrated.
(What a stinkin' silly statement!)
Being bad is such a bore.
(What was all that nonsense for?)
I'm okay with just being me from now on,
and I don't need this anymore.

I think you might have serious psychological issues.
A combination of PTSD and BDD,
resulting in an extreme form of misandry,
which you compensate for by completely disrespecting your own body.
With masochism as a defense mechanism,
and danger as stress relief;
your personal well-being is so far down on your list that it turns my stomach just thinking about it.
You're some kind of crazy and it makes me feel kind of sick.
How's that for a diagnosis?

Bad black widow;
The yo-yo queen.
7 different flies tied to 7 different strings,
attached to the end of 7 different legs.

Here's one bug that got away.

Surfing on the waves of the apocalypse,
our hero dives deep to grab the wings of angel fish
then spins with hands full 'til he's at the center of a whirlpool capable of drowning the world.

The reaper appears in the eye of a storm,
and as our hero peers into the depth of his cowl,
he's surprised to find a smiling caricature of his own face.

(This is the part where the main character blasts off into outer space.)

Armed with a bottle full of light,
he slays the wicked worms boring holes through his brain.
With the combined might of all the stars that remain,
he smites the dark matter beast before it can retreat to the unseen place between all things.

But victory is bittersweet,
as our hero soon discovers that he can no longer breathe.
For lack of the existence of gaps,
his lungs collapse beneath the crushing weight of everything as it condenses into one solid mass with an atomic number quickly approaching infinity.

Everything goes black,
then suddenly . . .
BANG!

Just because you're deep in thought,
doesn't mean your thoughts are deep.

Just because you're lost in dreams,
doesn't mean you're losing sleep.

Things are always what they seem,
except for when they aren't.
Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear to be,
if you know what I mean;
clearly blurry and vaguely crystalline.

Anyway, I'm hungry.
Let's go get a cheeseburger or something.

Love is like stepping on a nail,
then running.

Is that what the black-magic-matador is supposed to say as he pulls what's left of his cape out of the dryer?

Dyed blood red and riddled with holes,
but when you mess with a bull,
you get the horns.

"Alakazam," and it's out of my hands.
Stained white gloves hiding ***** tricks;
I'm washing them of you.

3, 2, 1 . . . now watch this:
I'm going to make every secret wish,
every half-expressed sentiment of longing,
every rabbit, dove, and remnant of love
disappear!

End where we started then start over again.
****** through the same side we spilled out of.
A pair of rings for fools and friends;
Crazy straw love.

Tangled then thickened to one mass.
Stripped in stark relief.
Strengths and weaknesses in high contrast;
sifting through our ashes.

I equate us to a figure eight
lying on its side.
Split down the middle -
we're nothing.

Carve the curve that craves the end.
Sliding out then in again.
Spiral arms unwinding;
Spin us toward the center.

Float it down the river;
a bottle with a note
full of fragile words and folded without hope:

"To whom it may concern,
I've grown weary of the worries -
worn down by the constant sound of thoughts spilling out of my head -
burnt out on turning down every opportunity to be saved.
One day, I'll get away,
but I'm in no hurry.
By the time you read this, I may already be dead,
but I might not be."

Standing in the sand with toes dug in deep;
watching the sun gleam off a bottle as it shrinks into the distance.
Goodbye to all the worst parts of me.

Hello horizon.

The only way to smooth the edges is to keep them tumbling constantly.

The smartest boy I know seems content to spend the rest of his life working a dead-end job at a pool store.

The most beautiful girl I've ever met feels compelled to hurt herself.

I scream into a pillow.
I scream out loud.

The brightest stars might never be seen,
because they're hidden by the clouds.

I've read the old poets and they're boring.
I've read the modernists and there might be something to it.
I've read my contemporaries and they're strictly hit or miss,
but I don't read my own because I know it's all ****.

It will be just how you saw it
in every way that it was promised -
only it won't be any of those things,
because it's really quite the opposite.

Only death lies for the just and honest.

Oh no, please say it isn't so.
I've allowed this thing to grow into something I can no longer control.
I'm somehow functioning past the point where I should have stopped functioning long ago.
The person who I once was,
the person who I wanted to be,
it's all just dust now scattered by the wind.
I don't even know who I am anymore.
Some stranger stares back at me when I look into the mirror.
He whispers, "you've become everything you've always hated."
I stare back and ask, "how does it feel?"

Santa's a ****, and he brought me no presents.
So what if I've been a bit unpleasant?
I did it on purpose!
You see, I've just grown so cold,
and I could get some use out of a few lumps of coal . . .

How do you save someone from themselves?
Is it even possible?
How can you interpret their cries for help
when they're in a language no else one understands?
Do you just give them a great big hug?
Maybe walk with them a little and hold their hand?
The truth of the matter is,
you can't save them.
No one can.

It spilled out and the ***** swept it up.
A ghost wearing sheets that were brought to your mouth.
Don't tell me 'bout things I don't wanna to hear about.
Don't talk to me right now.

A wraith in a dress and a ghost to impress.
A beast in the sheets with a white handkerchief.
Don't speak to me about things I don't wanna to believe.
Don't ever speak to me again.

The first embrace was electric.
The second was on fire.
The third was cold and frigid.

Lately, I've been thinking,
that maybe I've got a lot more left to say.
And maybe I got lost one day along the path that I'd subconsciously laid out for myself way back when.
I think you've been helping me retrace my steps.
I think that might make you a friend.

I've been thinking lately,
that maybe there are far too many words left unsaid.
Maybe I ought to stick around long enough to say them.
Maybe that makes me better off than dead.

My head has been swimming lately,
with all sorts of fantastical fish.
I wish I'd met you sooner.

Maybe the path that I long ago left is a little less buried than I thought it to be.
Maybe a shovel can dig a future as well as a past.
I think you've pulled me out of a grave.

This is my way of thanking you for that.

I wake up, alone,
to an alarm set by my cell phone,
and in a bed that's at least a thousand times more comfortable than my own.

Lost in the clouds where we stored all our dreams.
Fell to the ground in a million tiny drops.
Each one, a wish we don't remember making.

Leapt in the air and broke through atmospheres,
just to get some space.

We carved our names into the face of the sun.
Fell from the stars and hit the ground running.

No more phony saviors.
No more unasked for questions.
No more forced behaviors or unwanted confessions.

No more false prophets.
No more second guesses.
No more burnt synapses or blown out thought processes.

No more ****** mouths.
No more bitten tongues.
It's finally over now.
Finally, it's done.

The End to Ups and Downs -
forget about "c'est la vie."
There'll be nothing more from You now;
all that's left is Me.

From raw to refined.
A simple word, ill-defined.
Let's not get hung up on semantics,
but instead,
romanticize everything we've ever said;
about love,
about loss,
about life.
Everything is meaningless until it's been applied.

Supercilious satirists sipping scotch with seriousness
while discussing super silly stories
in a state of semi-deliriousness.

Windows into other lives.
Don't climb out;
You'll fall and die.

Bitter heart.
Bitter tastes.

Broken parts -
Pretty face.

Here's to you getting whatever it was that you wanted.
Here's to me never figuring it out.

Ring toss, you know,
where you try to get a small plastic ring to cling to the top of an empty bottle?
I've won it twice.
Both times, took home the biggest prize.

DUI's. I've had some close calls.
Passed a field sobriety test once,
but maybe she was just being nice.

Dice games;
I've only played three times in my life.
Lost a lot once,
but won big twice.

Social cues are common,
and should be hard to miss.
I find that social cues are oft -
hang on a second, I gotta take a ****.
* * *
What was I saying? Oh, right.
Social cues are awkward,
but I grew up in a weird environment.

Some people endeavor to portray a persona.
Some people perpetuate the beliefs of their parents.
Some people pretend to be somebody they've seen on TV.
Some people have trouble accepting that they're actually existing.
Some people perceive themselves as being unlike anyone else.
Some people have an aversion to personality profiling.
Some people just can't help themselves.
Some people feel a need to place everyone they've ever known into categories.

Left wing to the right wing,
and in between - almost everything.

Spin it back to the first track,
then move ahead - no turning back.

Spread them out,
now we're flying.

A feeling with no reason to doubt.

I dream of You.
I wake up to You.
I go to work and You're there.
Everywhere is You.

I come home to You.

When I'm alone,
there's only You.

Music is You.
Movies are You.
Every book ever written;
every word on every page:
You, You, You.
  
The sun, the world, and everything is You.
You are at the core of my being.  

I spend every day with You,
but I never get near Me.